Shred Academy – Free Guitar Lesson by Angel Zamora

SHRED
VS. SHRED
By Angel Zamora

In
my experience most of the guitarists in the shred style tend to
fight against the difficulty of new chops, phrases, licks, riffs,
etc. for a simple reason, they want to play them really fast as
soon as possible (perhaps in the same moment that they are reading
them for the first time).

The problem
is, if you don’t understand why those licks, phrases, etc.
exist in a contextual manner you’ll be losing the starting
point to develop speed on those chops, licks, etc.

Why? Because
sometimes the writer of those chops, licks, phrases, etc. is thinking
on several and different things at the same time that will affect
in the speed.

Like what?
-The meter
-The tone of a certain string
-The facility to play certain notes
-The harmony
-The tempo
-The picking hand
-The effects
-Etc.

Here I give
you how some of these examples influence to the writer of chops
to choose certain notes:

-The meter

It seems that
many guitar players forget the value of the notes of a lick, phrase,
etc. and just play the notes as fast as they can and just kill
the original feeling, so when a band covers a song and for example
the meter of the solo changes, most of the times the result is
a bad version of the original.
So, if you’re planning cover a song and you’re changing
the meter of a portion of the song, you have to really improve
or keep the feeling.

-The tone
of a certain string

If you have
noticed, only the 1st with the 6th string (in a guitar with at
least 23 frets) include all the notes possible in the range of
a guitar with 6 strings in standard tuning, so, why are there
those other 4 strings?
Well, the reason is TONE, if you play the same note in a different
string you’ll get a thinner or a thicker note (this means
in physics terms that the frequencies of the waves are the same
but the amplitude of the waves are different).

Ok now, why
is important choose certain tone?
Well, when you play a certain note in one of the strings, this
string gives you certain feelings.

For example
play the 19th fret of the 6th string and at the same time the
19th fret of the 1st string. Now play the 2nd string open and
at the same time the 19th fret of the 1st string.
You’ve played the same notes but the feeling is different,
and the difference of feeling will be more subtle while you choose
closer strings to play the same notes.

-The facility
to play certain notes

Let’s
take the last example again, play the 19th fret of the 6th string
and at the same time the 19th fret of the 1st string. Now play
the 2nd string open and at the same time the 19th fret of the
1st string. You’ve played the same notes but the facility
to play them has changed.
So here is why some writers choose certain strings to play certain
notes, and you must understand if you are going to play the same
notes but in different strings, you are changing the feeling,
perhaps subtly but there’s a change that many people can
hear.

Ok, now I’ve
given you a very basic introduction to know why a chop, lick,
phrase, riff, etc. is written in certain manner, with this you
can start learning new chops faster, because you know some important
points to keep in mind and you’ll reach your goal with confidence
just changing what is not important. And remember always begin
learning something new slowly.

See you next
time!

Angel Zamora
shredmetalx@yahoo.com
www.shred-metal.com